Sam Whiskey

(MGM Home Entertainment, 5.17.2005)

Burt Reynolds' comedic talent shines as he plays Sam Whiskey, all around thrill-seeker and charmer to the ladies. Sam likes his good rye whiskey drink, a hot bath, beautiful women, and risk-taking adventure aplenty. The film's very charming and inventive credits -- which take us from childhood to where Sam is today -- establish him as a man of great merit, with a well-established reputation to boot.

Sam meets up with Laura (Angie Dickinson), a well-off widow who needs help recovering $250,000 worth of gold bricks at the bottom of a river, which her dead husband foolishly stole from the government. Sam and his assembled ragtag group of buddies, including the late, great Ossie Davis (as Jedidiah Hooker, the blacksmith/ass-whooper) and Clint Walker (as O.W. Brady, the inventor/ businessman/retired badass), head out to recover the gold and return it to its rightful place...before Laura's family takes the fall.

Oh, and Sam's clan gets 20,000 big ones in return, plus the love and adoration of Laura, at least for good ol' Sammy boy. But hot on their trail is a fat man who wants that money real bad and enlists the help of several misfits and country boys to help him steal the gold from Whiskey and the boys.

Mainly thanks to a solid cast, Sam Whiskey deftly juggles comedy, adventure, wit and charm in 97 breezy minutes. The locales also stand out quite nicely and the content is refreshing as well as consistently unpredictable, which makes for a rather amusing reversed caper/western.

The DVD comes with the film's theatrical trailer and that's it. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting much more, plus the disc is rather cheap. The 1.85:1 transfer is quite nice, however it's non-anamorphic, which is a real puzzler. You also have the option of watching the film in its incorrect aspect ratio (aka fool-frame). Lastly, the audio -- in original Mono -- sounds rather good, especially when Sam starts singing about his love of whiskey and gin.

Sam Whiskey is a light, very respectable film that challenges the genre and, to a certain degree, charms/thrills its audience at the same time. I'd definitely recommend it as a reasonable purchase for fans of the genre -- more caper than western -- or the cast. This is more than just a worthy rental. -- Neil Karassik